De l’influence de l’esclavage sur l’industrie et le commerce des nations qui ont des relations comme

CHAP. 19: > On the influence of slavery on the industry and commerce of nations that have commercial relations with peoples among whom slavery is established. — On the colonial system.

It is difficult to conceive of a system whose effects are more fatal, and extend as far, as those that result from slavery. It is especially difficult to imagine a kind of slavery as atrocious as that which we see established in the colonies formed by the Europeans, or in some parts of the American continent. This system was established and is maintained only with the approval and by the collaboration of most of the peoples and governments of Europe. The lot of the slaves is so miserable that the masters need to count on the support of foreign soldiers to indulge with impunity in the violence of their passions. However, since this system is sustained only by the support we give it, and since its effect is to corrupt the moral principles of nations that come into contact with slave-owners, it must be that, in other respects, it presents some advantages; for if it produced only evils for everyone, would anyone be found who would want to support it?It is evident, in fact, that slavery is, for the nation in which it is established, the greatest of calamities: it depraves the masters even more than the slaves; it destroys in both all principle of morality; it prevents the development of all the intellectual faculties concerning the things it is most important for nations to know; it allows only the crudest industry to be practiced; it condemns the enslaved population to profound misery and terrible punishments, at the same time as it is for the master class a principle of impoverishment; it deprives the possessed men of all guarantees only by robbing their possessors of all security, and by making it impossible for them to ever have an impartial and just government; it forbids the masters the hope of ever existing as an independent nation, and would place them at the discretion of any foreign people or government, if the authority that protects them were to abandon them to their own devices; finally, it corrupts even the governments or nations that have friendly relations with the possessors of men.

But these evils, which are indisputable, are redeemed, so it is imagined, by the advantages that several States of Europe derive from the possession of their colonies. It was formerly claimed that negroes were made slaves for their own good; one did not have the impudence to maintain that slavery was for them a state of happiness, but it was said that they were being torn from idolatry, and that there was no better means of sending them to heaven than to make them Christian instruments of agriculture. This supposed interest in the future life of the enslaved men must now be set aside, since it has been proven by long experience that slavery not only does not make slaves religious, but that it even destroys in the masters all principle of religion. The nations of Europe that support such a system in the colonies, and that support with their forces the power of the masters, can therefore no longer be guided by anything but the material interests of their industry and their commerce. Thus, that slavery is an inexhaustible source of calamities and crimes, we will admit, and no one will contest it; but these calamities and crimes bring us profit, and from then on we must show ourselves to be unscrupulous; let us see then what they bring us.

If slavery were abolished in the colonies, it is said, the landowners would be obliged to change their cultivation, and to substitute for some of their productions productions of another kind; the cultivation of sugarcane, for example, would become so expensive that there would no longer be any way to withstand the competition with sugar from India. The colonies no longer producing the commodities that the mother countries demand, the latter could no longer send them in exchange the products of their industry. Hence, the inactivity of our manufactures and the stagnation of our commerce.

There is not a single one of these propositions that is not a manifest error. It has been previously established that a slave's day of labor becomes infinitely more expensive for the cultivator who pays for it than a free man's day of labor; the difference is even so great that it would be incredible, if it were not confirmed by numerous and irrefutable facts. Now, can one seriously maintain that, if the landowners were obliged to pay their workers less, they could not continue to engage in cultivation, unless they asked a higher price for their commodities?

Let us admit, however, that the colonists did not have the means to withstand, in the sale of sugar, the competition with other countries, with the Indies or South America, for example; let us admit that they would be obliged to change their mode of cultivation, and that we would no longer need a portion of their commodities; how could our industry and our commerce be affected by such an event? They would be affected, no doubt, but it would be in a very advantageous manner: the quantity of our products with which we pay for a pound of sugar when we buy it from a possessor of men in Martinique would serve to pay for two pounds of it, if we bought it from a cultivator who has his labors executed only by free hands: the only harm in that would be to align interest with morality. But this question is connected to the emancipation of the colonies, and it is not yet the moment to examine it.

The colonial system presents two very distinct questions: one is relative to the emancipation of the slaves, the other to the independence of the colonies. One can very well conceive that the slaves could be emancipated without the colonies being independent; one can also conceive that the colonies could be abandoned to their own devices without the slaves being emancipated. I propose, at this moment, only to expose the effects of slavery on industry and commerce, whether of the mother countries, or of the nations that, without possessing colonies, have commercial relations with peoples among whom slavery is established.

The possessors of slaves, colonists or others, send a part of their agricultural productions to the industrious peoples among whom slavery is not admitted; but they do not send them as gifts; they demand that they be paid the price they set on them, without which they would keep them or send them elsewhere. For their part, the industrious peoples send manufactured productions to the peoples who possess slaves; but they do not send them for free; they deliver them only to those who pay them their value. It is therefore an exchange that takes place between two nations: the question is to know whether the circumstance of slavery makes the condition of the nation that delivers its manufactured products to the possessors of slaves more advantageous.

The principal productions that the colonies send to their mother countries consist of sugar, coffee, or other commodities that generally grow only between the tropics. Are these productions offered by the possessors of slaves at lower prices than those at which free cultivators can deliver them? If it is true, as I believe I have previously established, that, in all circumstances, labor done by slaves costs more to the one who pays for it than labor done by free men, it is evident that the nations in which domestic servitude does not exist, and which produce the same commodities as the colonies, can deliver them more cheaply; for, the less a merchandise costs in production costs, the easier it is to deliver it at a low price. It is true that labor executed by slaves could be more expensive than that which is executed by free men in the greatest number of cases, and not be so in all; it might not be so particularly in the production of the commodities that the colonies send to their mother countries; but I have already shown that, even in the production of equinoctial commodities, the proprietor who has his labors executed by slaves pays infinitely more for them than the proprietor who has them executed by free hands. Thus, one cannot even maintain that the production of commodities that grow only between the tropics is an exceptional case. There is, moreover, a very simple means of knowing whether the labors executed by slaves to obtain commodities of this kind cost more to the landowners than the labors employed for the same production in countries where slavery does not exist: it is to compare the price that the inhabitants of the mother countries are obliged to give for these commodities when they receive them from the planters, to the price they would give for them if they received them from countries where the labors are executed by men who are not slaves.

We have seen elsewhere that the population of Martinique was composed, in 1815, of 77,577 slaves, 8,630 free people of color, and 9,206 whites. In Guadeloupe, these three classes of the population exist in roughly the same proportions. Thus, in our colonies, for every two free persons of any color, there are nine slaves, or four and a half slaves per free person. In the island of Cuba, the population, which is put at 722,000, is divided into 465,000 slaves and 257,000 free persons of any color; that is a little less than two slaves per free person. Which of these islands, however, is the one in which sugar is produced at the lowest price? It is the one where there are half as many slaves as in the others, compared to the number of free persons. According to Mr. J.-B. Say, France pays Martinique and Guadeloupe for the sugar it receives from these colonies at the rate of fifty francs per hundred pounds, not including duties, and would obtain it in Havana for thirty-five francs, also not including duties. The difference is therefore nearly a third in favor of the country that, compared to the free population, possesses the fewest slaves [369].

When our colonies and the Dutch colonies fell under English power, the sugar produced by these colonies was admitted into England, subject to the duties paid by its old colonies; but when sugar from India, cultivated by free hands, came to England in competition with that which is brought from the colonies by means of slave labor, it was necessary to establish, on the former, an enormous import duty to protect the sale of the latter. However, to transport commodities from India to Europe costs infinitely more than to transport them from the islands of America. It must be added that the processes employed by the Indian cultivators to extract the juice from the sugarcane are crude, long, and expensive. These cultivators do not know the machines that the industry of the peoples of Europe has introduced into their colonies. They require, to extract the sugar, a considerable use of labor and fuel. If they knew our processes, they could deliver this commodity at a still lower price [370].

A commendable traveler assures that first-quality white sugar is sold in Cochinchina at the rate of three piastres or sixteen francs of our money per Cochinchinese quintal, which is equivalent to one hundred and fifty of our pounds, poids de marc, which is almost only two French sous per pound. At this price, says Mr. Say, China draws more than eighty million pounds of it every year. By adding to this price three hundred francs per hundred for the costs and profits of commerce, this white sugar would cost us, in France, only eight or nine sous per pound [371].

This difference in favor of the productions obtained by free cultivators, over the productions obtained by slaves, is so great that it at first seems incredible. How can one conceive, in fact, that free cultivators who are deprived of the processes and machines employed in our colonies, and who are located at a double distance, can nevertheless offer us their productions at a price inferior to that which the colonists are obliged to demand for them? The facts I have previously reported explain this phenomenon: we have seen that, wherever labor is executed by slaves, it is more expensive than in countries where it is executed by free hands. At the Cape of Good Hope, a slave's day of labor, which is worth only half of a free man's day, is nevertheless paid 2 fr. 50, and it is paid a little more than 5 fr. in Louisiana, where a free man's day is worth more than double, because the number of slaves there is even more considerable. In our colonies, the price of a slave's day of labor is a little less high; it is put at about 4 fr.; supposing it is only 3 fr., the planter of the colonies must, in this supposition, give, for a slave's day of labor, a sum ten times greater than that which a cultivator in India gives for a free man's day of labor; for, in this latter country, a free worker is content with 30 centimes per day. Can one be surprised, in the presence of such facts, that a cultivator for whom labor costs only a tenth of what it costs others can give his commodities more cheaply?

The quantity of sugar consumed annually in France is fifty million kilograms or one hundred million pounds [372]. This sugar, at the rate of 50 fr. per hundred pounds, costs us fifty million. If, instead of buying it in islands where there are four and a half slaves for one free person, we bought it in an island where there are half as many slaves, we would pay only thirty-five million for it, that is to say, we would make a saving of fifteen million. If we bought it in countries where the labors of agriculture are executed by free workers, the saving would be greater; for we would pay twenty-five million less. The preference given to the productions of free peoples would procure for us still greater advantages; the consumption of sugar would become more extensive, more general: a multitude of persons who are obliged to deprive themselves of it or to restrict their consumption of it, at its current price, would buy it or consume more of it, if it were sold at a lower price.

Thus, by giving preference to the productions that the possessors of men in our colonies sell us, we give them gratuitously, on a single commodity, at least fifteen million every year. Our sacrifices do not stop there: we pay, in addition, more than half of their administration; we pay the troops that guard them, the ships that protect them. According to the report of the Minister of the Navy, made in 1820, the internal administration of the two Antilles costs 11,860,000 fr. annually; of this sum, local revenues furnish only 5,790,000 fr., so that a little more than six million remains for us to pay. To this must be added the expenses of a military navy, the expenses incurred in France by the administration in charge of this part of the government, and what must be paid for other equinoctial commodities, over and above what they would cost us elsewhere. Finally, it must be observed that all these expenses are calculated on the state of peace, and that in case of war, the costs of guarding the colonies become immense. In evaluating all these expenses at fifty million, it is not to put them too high [373].

But the possessors of men in the colonies assure that these expenses are not made in pure loss, and that we derive from them advantages of an equal, if not superior, value. These advantages are all contained in the monopoly that France exercises in the colonies for the sale of all its products. The fifty million that our colonies cost us annually must therefore be found in the profits that commerce makes by bringing them our merchandise. I cannot say precisely what values France sends to its colonies; but there are, to be certain of it, means that we can in a way consider infallible. The first is to examine the number and resources of the various classes of the colonial population. The second is to examine the values that the colonies send to the mother country. It is evident, on the one hand, that the inhabitants of the colonies cannot buy our products beyond the value of their own revenues. It is no less evident, on the other hand, that the values they receive can never be other than in proportion to those they send.

To put the number of slaves in Guadeloupe and Martinique at 200,000 individuals would be to estimate it very high; let us suppose, however, that such a number exists. What are the profits that the industry and commerce of France can make on this class of the population? There is no profit to be made either on their food or on their furniture; all the profits must therefore be made on their clothing. But what is the annual expense that an enslaved individual makes for his clothing? The English estimate that a slave, when he is well maintained, costs them, for his clothing and for his bed, during one year, 27 sh., about 33 fr. 75[374]. But this sum is spent only for slaves who have reached the age of a man; the children go naked, or nearly so. Let us admit, however, that the expense is the same for all: in this supposition, the slave population of the two Antilles will consume our manufactured products for a sum of 6,750,000 fr.; let us put eight million, for fear of remaining below the truth.

These eight million, paid by the masters for the annual clothing of the slaves, will not be a net profit for the merchants or for the manufacturers; for neither the one nor the other obtains their merchandise for nothing. French commerce exercises a monopoly in our colonies for the sale of all our products; but this monopoly exists only with regard to other nations. The national manufacturers and merchants compete with each other, and each of them is obliged to be content with the smallest possible profit. What can be the profits they make in their commerce with the colonies? I do not know; but I believe I am estimating it very high by putting it at 25%. It will therefore be two million francs of profit that the commerce to which the needs of the slave population give rise will leave every year.The class of the possessors of men and that of the freedmen have more numerous needs than the class of the slaves, at the same time as they have more means to satisfy them; but the number of individuals of which they are composed is also less considerable. This part of the population may today amount to 30,000 to 35,000 individuals; in this number, there are many freedmen, some of whom are well-off, and several of whom possess almost nothing; there are also many landowners who are overwhelmed with debt, and who are consequently obliged to reduce their expenses as much as possible. It is, however, with the men of this class that French merchants must conduct a trade extensive enough to recoup the enormous sums that the colonies cost us. Again setting the profits here at 25%, it would require about 235 million in business every year. When sales for such a sum have been made, the expenses that the colonies cost us will have been recouped; but not a centime of profit will yet have been made; the profits will begin only when all the expenses are covered.

The population of Martinique and Guadeloupe is about what it was in 1775; agriculture has made no progress; and the lands, far from being more fertile, are probably less so, since they are more exhausted. However, what were the values exported from these two islands at that time? The first exported commodities for nearly 19 million livres tournois; the second exported for a little less than 13 million [375]. The total value of the commodities exported by the principal colonies that remain to us did not, therefore, amount to quite 32 million; so that, admitting that these islands are still as fertile as they were then, France would be at a loss with them, even if they sent it all their productions for nothing. It is true that commerce can make some profits with the inhabitants of the île Bourbon; but these profits are also reduced to very little [376].

There are few cities of average size in Europe that could not offer French industry and commerce a more advantageous market than that which is offered to us by all the colonies of which we are tributaries, and which we claim to possess. However, what man of good sense would dare to propose giving, even to one of the most considerable, 40 or 50 million every year, on the sole condition that it would come to us for the manufactured products it needed? The city of Geneva, for example, is infinitely richer than all our colonies combined; it therefore has a much greater annual consumption. I am persuaded, nevertheless, that if we offered to give it an annual income of only 30 million, it would commit to buying our merchandise at the current price, in preference to all other nations of the world. It is true that it buys a great deal, without our needing to ruin ourselves to obtain its clientele; but, for the same reason, the colonists would also buy, even if we did not spend ten centimes to guard or administer them.

Finally, a nation sells nothing to those from whom it wishes to receive nothing in exchange; when, in the purchase of the equinoctial commodities we need, we give preference to some, we thereby repel the clientele of others. To sell the products of our factories to colonists from Martinique or Guadeloupe, we are obliged to receive their commodities, which they sell to us very dearly; but, when we have received these commodities, we are obliged to refuse commodities of the same nature that are offered to us by other peoples; by refusing them, we make it impossible for those who produce them to buy from us the products that suit them, and which we desire to sell them; that is to say, in other words, that we refuse good clientele to have bad ones. One people, for example, would consent to exchange the value of one hundred kilograms of sugar for the value of a meter of cloth; and we give preference to a people that gives us only fifty kilograms of sugar for the same value, and that moreover demands that we incur enormous expenses to preserve its clientele.

England behaves toward its colonies as France does toward hers. As the consumption of colonial commodities is even more considerable there than it is here, relative to the population, the losses it incurs are much greater. In France, the annual consumption of sugar is about three pounds three ounces per person; in England, it is sixteen to seventeen pounds. The quantity of sugar consumed annually in Great Britain is about 150,000 tons, or 300 million pounds. Although this consumption seems immense, it is nevertheless far below what it would be if enormous import duties and the monopoly granted to the planters did not place a large part of the population under the necessity of depriving themselves of this commodity, or of reducing its consumption. It is estimated that if the price of sugar were reduced to the price at which it would naturally fall if trade were free, Great Britain would consume four or five times more of it than it currently consumes [377].

In order to enable the possessors of men in the colonies to sell their sugar, it has been necessary to establish enormous taxes on this commodity when it is produced in other countries. The sugar of India is produced in the English possessions; but it is cultivated by free workers. The journey it must make to reach England raises its price by about a third. However, it has been necessary to establish a tax of ten shillings (12 fr. 50) per quintal, in addition to the tax that weighs on the sugar of the West Indies. Besides this tax, and in order to further facilitate the sale of their sugar for the planters, a sum greater than what it paid upon entry is paid upon the exit of this commodity. The difference is about 7 fr. 50 per quintal [378].

The possessors of men in the colonies have not only obtained a monopoly on the sale of sugar, by the effect of the enormous taxes that have been placed on all sugars produced elsewhere than in the islands of America; they have obtained, by the same means, a similar monopoly on almost all equinoctial commodities. Besides these burdens which weigh on all the inhabitants of Great Britain, and which oblige them to pay very dearly for a multitude of objects they could obtain at a low price, the military and naval defense of the colonies costs, in peacetime, 1,600,000 pounds sterling, that is to say, nearly 40 million francs. In combining, says an English writer, the direct expenses that the preservation and defense of our colonies cost us, the premium granted for the importation of sugars, the import duties established on this commodity and on a great number of others, with a view to exclusively favoring the sale of colonial commodities, the restrictions placed on our commerce with India and with other parts of the world in order to favor the possessors of slaves, it would be to estimate very low the annual loss that we incur to maintain this fatal system, to place it at four million pounds sterling, to which must be added the opprobrium and the crimes that are inseparable from it [379].

What are the advantages that the English buy with these enormous sacrifices? Are the equinoctial commodities delivered to them free of charge by the possessors of slaves? Are they sold to them below the price that free cultivators would demand for them? On the contrary, they are sold to them at a higher price. The only advantage they obtain is to exclusively sell the products of their manufactures to the inhabitants of their colonies; and this advantage is reduced to buying the clientele of 800,000 or 900,000 individuals who are called slaves, and who are more miserable than the beggars of any of the States of Europe, and the clientele of a few thousand individuals who are called masters, and most of whom are crushed by debt. If the English calculated what quantity of merchandise they must sell to the possessors of men to recoup the expenses they incur with a view to securing their clientele, they would be convinced that the best thing they have to do is to deliver their merchandise to them for nothing, and to buy, at this price, the freedom of commerce. With half the sums they spend annually for the colonies, English merchants would obtain, for the sale of their merchandise, a monopoly far more extensive than the one they have in their colonies. If they offered, for example, the government of Spain an annual income of two million pounds sterling, to acquire the privilege of selling the products of their manufactures in the peninsula, there is no doubt that the deal would be accepted with gratitude. This treaty would be infinitely less disadvantageous for England than its colonial system, since it would cost it half as much, it would give it a number of customers ten times more considerable, and each of these customers would have the means to buy from it a greater quantity of the products of its manufactures. The poorest Spaniards are, in fact, much less poor than the slaves of the colonies, and those who enjoy some ease are more numerous and richer than the possessors of slaves.

One can conceive that a nation whose industry is still crude, and which is less advanced than others, might at first buy its customers or give them its merchandise for nothing, in the hope that it will succeed in doing better, and that it will regain what it has lost; this is still a very bad calculation, but one can conceive it, because it can be founded on some appearance of reason. But can one equally conceive that the nations that are the most advanced in industry, that manufacture better and at a lower price than all the others, should incur enormous costs to buy customers? If neither England nor France granted any privilege to the possessors of men in the islands or on the continent of America, if they both renounced the monopoly they intend to exercise for the sale of their manufactured products, to which peoples would these possessors of men go to offer their commodities and buy merchandise? Which peoples could offer them better-made and cheaper objects? Which ones could open a wider market for their own products? The countries that have no colonies, such as Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the United States of America, buy equinoctial commodities at a lower price than France and England; if we abandoned our miserable colonies to themselves, we would be in the same case as the peoples who have none; we would pay for equinoctial commodities at a lower price; we would avoid an annual expense of about fifty million, and we would sell a slightly more considerable quantity of our manufactured products.

It seems, at first glance, that by reserving for themselves in their colonies the monopoly on the sale of their manufactured products and by giving the colonists the monopoly on the sale of their commodities in the mother country, the industrious nations have treated on an equal footing with the possessors of men, and that, consequently, the advantages and disadvantages are reciprocal: but it is not so; all the disadvantages are on the side of the peoples among whom no slaves exist.

The manufacturing industry of a people is not limited by the extent of its territory; in a space of a few square leagues, an industry sometimes develops that is more extensive than that which can develop in a vast empire. The industry and wealth that exist in the cities of Paris or London, for example, probably exceed those that exist in old Poland, and they can increase indefinitely. Manufactured products have no other limits than the extent of capital and the needs of consumers. The progress of enlightenment makes production cheaper and more perfect every day; there is a multitude of things that can be had today for a quarter of what they once cost, although they are of a superior quality.

But agricultural industry is not in the same case, especially among peoples where all labor is performed by slaves. Agricultural products are limited by the extent of the soil, by the capital that can be employed in agriculture, and by the incapacity of the masters and slaves. The sugar islands are limited, and it does not depend on the possessors to extend their boundaries. I have shown elsewhere that slavery reduces the intellectual faculties of masters and slaves to the narrowest limits, especially in what relates to industry. I have also proven that the possessors of men, far from having new capital to devote to cultivation, are generally overwhelmed with debt. Finally, I have shown that lands exploited by slaves, under the direction of proprietors who have no capital, become less and less productive [380].

Thus, while, on the one hand, wealth and population multiply, manufactured products are offered in greater abundance and at a lower price, and the demand for equinoctial commodities increases, the production of these commodities remains concentrated in the same space, and becomes more and more expensive. The possessors of men are therefore the only ones who have a true monopoly, since their number is invariable and none can increase the extent of his possessions; while the number of consumers of colonial commodities increases indefinitely, and the products of manufactures always rise to the level of needs or demands.

In England, the consumption of sugar has increased tenfold in the space of a little more than a century; it was only 15,000 tons in 1700; in 1730, it was 42,000; in 1760, 58,000; it was 81,000 in 1790, and 150,000 in 1820; but from 1700 to 1820, the number of English colonies increased in the same proportion, and a greater quantity of land was put into cultivation [381]. For only about thirty years, the French population has increased by five million individuals; industry has made even more rapid progress; the wealth of each has consequently increased, and with it the demand for equinoctial commodities; but has the production of these commodities followed the same progression? It has followed an inverse progression; thirty-five or forty years ago, the possessors of men of Saint-Domingue, those of the Île de France, those of Louisiana, those of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and others, competed with each other in the sale of their commodities. Today, there is no longer any possible competition, and one cannot even conceive that the three islands that enjoy the monopoly can produce the equinoctial commodities that are consumed in France; one conceives it all the less as consumption has increased at the same time as the number of colonies has decreased by three-quarters.

We have seen that in England, the consumption of sugar is fifteen to seventeen pounds per person, and that in France it is only about three and a quarter pounds. France, to consume in the same proportion as England, would therefore have to receive at least five times more than its colonies can produce; and, if it is true that in England consumption could be five times greater, France could make the same progress only by having twenty-five or thirty times more colonies than it possesses. It must even be observed that, if the monopoly granted to the inhabitants of three miserable islands did not raise the price of sugar to the point of putting it beyond the reach of the mass of the population, this commodity would be used for the preparation and preservation of our fruits, and that, consequently, its consumption could be carried much further than it can be in England. The preservation of fruits by means of sugar would give farmers the means to multiply them and to deliver them to commerce; and the peoples of the south would have a new means of exchange with the peoples of the north.I have previously observed that, to obtain a slave's labor, a master pays for one small part of it with commodities or clothing, and the other part with blows of the whip. We cannot consider what is acquired with this latter kind of currency any differently than we consider the profits made by individuals who extort travelers on the highways. Thus, when we grant a monopoly to the commodities sold by possessors of men, to the detriment of proprietors who sell the same commodities but have their lands cultivated only by free persons, we are in the same situation as a man who would refuse to buy goods from those who produced them, and would only buy stolen goods. Such a trade, conducted by a dishonest man, would be natural if the stolen goods were delivered at a price much lower than the current market price; but if the thieves, considering the dangers of their profession, demanded a price higher than the current price, what would we think of the one who gave them preference? We would think that such a man carries improbity to the point of extravagance. However, what difference could we assign between him and a people that pays dearly for commodities whose possessors have paid the value only with blows of the whip, and that rejects commodities of the same nature offered to it at a lower price, and which the possessors have legitimately acquired?

In explaining the effects that slavery produces on wealth, I have shown that, if it is a source of calamities for the slaves, it is a cause of ruin for the masters; from this, we can draw the conclusion that tyranny is scarcely less fatal to the race of the oppressors than to that of the oppressed. We can now push this conclusion a little further; we can say that, if the domination an individual exercises over others is sooner or later a cause of ruin for him or for his race, the domination that one people exercises over another is likewise a cause of despotism and ruin for that people.

The peoples among whom slaves exist exercise, as we have seen, a fatal influence on the peoples among whom slavery does not exist. Likewise, the nations that hold other nations in their dependence exercise an influence that is no less fatal on those that are neither enslaved nor dominating. A considerable part of South America could furnish us, at very moderate prices, with all the equinoctial commodities. The lands suitable for the cultivation of these commodities are so vast that, however extensive our needs may be, production can always be brought to the level of demand. In exchange for their commodities, the peoples who inhabit these countries ask us for neither gold nor silver, for these materials have slightly less value there than they do here. They ask us for the products of our manufactures, and, as the cultivators there are free, they can absorb an immense quantity of them. Nor do they ask us, in order to receive our goods, to pay for their administrators, their army, or the navy that protects them. With them, everything would be profit, and the exchanges could increase infinitely; but we reject them for the very natural reason that subjects who ruin us are better than friends who would enrich us. I say that we reject them, although we go to offer them our goods; for they can give, in exchange for foreign products, only the products that come from their own country.

Several of the peoples of South America among whom slavery is abolished possess immense lands that have never been cultivated, and which are capable of producing far more equinoctial commodities than they can consume. For these lands to be put into cultivation, there would have to be peoples who needed to buy their products, and who could give in exchange the objects that are lacking in the country. But where to find such peoples? The English will not ask to sell the products of their manufactures to the cultivators of South America; but they will refuse to receive in exchange agricultural products, such as sugar, coffee, indigo, and others. The French will also show themselves very eager to bring them manufactured products, but on the condition that the farmers do not give in exchange the products of their agriculture, that is to say, the only wealth of which they can dispose. The farmers will therefore have to find, in order to buy products of French or English industry, other peoples who consent to receive their productions. They cannot take them to India or to the south of Asia; for there they would find the same commodities produced more cheaply. They cannot take them to the northern Asiatics; for, besides there being no road that leads them there, they would find nothing to receive in exchange. They must therefore take them to the Anglo-Americans of the north, or to the peoples of Europe who have no colonies; but these peoples have little to give them in return. Russia can supply England with construction timber, hemp, tallow, wheat, and a few other raw materials; but what can it give to the peoples who live between the tropics? Thus, at the same time that industrious peoples ruin themselves and halt the development of their commerce by the monopolies they grant, at home, to the possessors of slaves, they halt the development of civilization in the most fertile and richest parts of the earth.

The monopolies that industrious nations grant, at home, to the possessors of men in a few colonies, have an effect they did not foresee; it is to create monopolies in favor of other nations that they often consider as rivals or as enemies. Let us suppose, in fact, that a power such as Russia, wishing to buy equinoctial commodities at the lowest possible price, issues a decree by which it forbids the most industrious nations from buying these commodities in the countries where labor is very cheap, for the reason that there are no slaves; let us suppose further that it enjoins them to go and supply themselves in islands where the same commodities are very expensive, where nine-tenths of the population live in the most profound misery, and where the other tenth is overwhelmed with debt; let us suppose, finally, that after having reserved for itself the most advantageous market for buying as well as for selling, it has sufficient force to have its decrees executed; what man would not consider this measure as the most oppressive and the most likely to ruin the industry and commerce of the peoples who will be obliged to submit to it? However, what would be the differences between this measure and the system that the colonial powers execute with such obstinacy? There would be two: in one case, it would be the nation deemed oppressive that would pay the costs of the oppression, whereas, in the current system, it is the nations against which the prohibition is directed that pay the costs themselves; the second difference would be that, in the first case, one would avoid the evils of defending against smuggling, whereas one cannot avoid them in the second.

Ultimately, the only foreign trade that can leave a great profit is that which is done with a numerous population, all of whose individuals live in ease, are well-fed, well-clothed, and always have something to sell and to buy. The least advantageous foreign trade is, on the contrary, that which is done with a population of which nine-tenths live in profound misery, and can procure neither furniture, nor clothing, nor food, and where the other tenth, overwhelmed with debt, is constantly on the verge of bankruptcy.

One has been able to see, by reading this work, that the greatest analogy exists between peoples subject to the regime of slavery, peoples who have never emerged from barbarism, and peoples subject to the most despotic governments: now, it is not conceivable that, to maintain exclusive commercial relations with such peoples, one rejects the commercial relations of civilized peoples; that one thus gives to other nations, considered as rivals, the monopolies of the most advantageous markets, and that one makes enormous expenditures to arrive at this fine result.

The wisest thing that the peoples who pay an immense tribute to colonies over which they claim to reign could do, would therefore be to renounce their empire; but peoples are no less attached than princes to everything that has the appearance of command: Spain, under the regime of the Cortès, has given us a memorable example of this. Let them keep their colonies, then, since it pleases them to ruin themselves for them; but let them at least try to have them cultivated by free men; they will find a great number of advantages in it. In the first place, equinoctial commodities being produced at less cost, they will buy them more cheaply. In the second place, a population of farmers and workers replacing a population of slaves, they will sell a more considerable quantity of their manufactured products. In the third place, the landowners having ceased to be oppressors, no part of the population will need to be on guard against another, and the soldiers of Europe will be useless. Finally, all classes of men being richer, we will not have to pay the costs of their administration.

The colonial system presents very serious disadvantages; but one must not believe that it gives profits to no one. When one has colonies, one must have governors, sub-governors, and other employees who are paid dearly. One must also have a numerous navy, and consequently ship captains, admirals, engineers, ministers, clerks, and a host of other persons who live from their employments. All these interests doubtless deserve to be considered; it is only a matter of not evaluating them beyond the good that the interested parties derive from them.